LAST WEEK, the University signed its best football recruiting class in recent memory, and quite possibly in its history. The University's recruiting class has been rated in the top 10 by every sports polling company, and seeks to set the foundation for a rise to national prominence. This news should be widely heralded by University football fans that now have an ample gleam of hope for the future of our program. One question does come to mind though: Why wasn't this done before?
Many sports analysts have stated in the past that schools that rank highly in academics cannot hope to be successful in athletics because of their high scholastic standards. Luckily, our University has proven those analysts wrong and hopefully will continue to, because high academic standards do not necessarily have to hinder athletics programs.
The University has proven itself to be a competitive school not only in academia, but also on the playing fields. There currently are several athletic programs that rank in the national top 25; among them, men's basketball, men's lacrosse and men's and women's swimming. This exuberance of athletic performance coupled with our high scholastic principles has shown the University to be a balanced institution striving for excellence in almost every field. However, football lately has been one of the University's less successful teams.
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Football is one of the most difficult sports to manage. It demands the greatest percentage of the athletic budget, as it must maintain the largest stadium on Grounds, as well as the largest group of athletes of any sport. Consistently recruiting high quality recruiting classes to sustain a top program is highly challenging.
Many would argue that the University traditionally has not engaged in top recruiting. As Tom Lemming mentioned in an ESPN online chat on Jan. 22, they often have settled for "B-list athletes." Recruiting top players is a daunting task. Investing in players at that level entails a high risk, as many favor several different schools and usually don't make their decisions until the last moment. As Lemming mentioned in the ESPN chat, "Virginia is finally playing with the big boys, which means they're taking chances on losing great players."
However, probably the most decisive factor in not going after the best players has been the specter of poor scholastic performance. It is a common stereotype that athletes do not perform well academically. This stereotype is not correct. Some think that it is because talented athletes don't care about academics because they envision a high-income career as a professional athlete, or they simply do not have the brainpower to compete scholastically. Although this has been the case for some athletes in the past, it does not necessarily have to be the norm.
The University is known for its high academic standards. Maintaining those standards while supporting athletes that don't care about their schoolwork would be highly incompatible.
This phenomenon of scholastically excellent schools coupled with mediocre football programs is the norm across the nation. In a comparison of U.S. News and World Report's rankings of the top 25 academic schools and ESPN's rankings of the top 25 collegiate football teams from this year, the only schools that appear on both lists are Stanford and the University of Michigan, making their cases appear to be the exception.
This stereotype that athletes cannot compete scholastically is wrong. That is not to say that there aren't athletes that are low academic achievers. But one cannot automatically assume that all athletes, particularly the top ones, do not care about school. For instance, Kai Parham, one of our up-and-coming players and a five-star recruit, mentioned in his announcement Feb. 4 that one of the key factors of his decision was the University's strong academic programs, and that he hopes to go on to medical school.
There are several other factors other than academics at the University that could be attractive to recruits. The University features a beautiful campus, a lively and diverse student body, state-of-the-art sports facilities, national attention and a large, dedicated fan base. If an athlete decides that he is not interested in engaging in the rigorous academic atmosphere here, he will remove himself from consideration from our athletic programs or not consider us at all. In that way, the recruiting candidates weed themselves out in accordance with their stance on scholastics.
The University must continue to look into top athletic recruits in the upcoming years. As the success of this year has shown, the University is actually a very attractive place for top athletic recruits. The sky is the limit as to how high our athletic programs can soar.
(Alex Rosemblat's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at arosemblat@cavalierdaily.com.)
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